


Good medicine.

by orange_crushed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.</i><br/>-Hippocrates</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good medicine.

"I knew it." Sirius lifts his head, winces, and sets it back down on his forearms, grimacing. "You animal. You're putting me in a stew." Remus cuts another slice of cucumber and peels it away from the knife: paper thin and swelling a little with moisture, a tiny round of green and lucent glass. He is setting them in rows on Sirius's blistered back, and Sirius is trying to itch the edges.

"Now, now," says Remus.

"You're not the human steak," Sirius grumbles. "They could've had the decency to turn me over."

James's family has a remarkable tolerance for furtive teenage drinking, as long as it is done within the confines of their sprawling gardens. A week of camping in the yard with stolen booze sounded like a tremendously good idea; Sirius tells him that until at least nine o'clock yesterday morning, it was. But after that the summer sun was merciless, and while James and Peter wandered off to hide and wallow in nausea in their poorly constructed pup tents, Sirius could be seen snoring shirtless on a pile of camp chairs until nearly one. Remus, now recovered from his last moon, showed up for day two of the festivities only to discover himself nominated nursemaid. There are, he thinks, peeling off another slice of cucumber, worse things. Like not being able to go home again. He puts the last slice beside the other.

"Hold still," he says. He doesn't bother with his wand. There are older magics, grown from necessity. He would sing Sirius to sleep right now, the way his mother used to, if he wasn't sixteen and more than slightly embarassed and secretly enchanted by the idea. Her songs dissolve the pain, wear away the hurt to nothing like sugar stirred into a glass. Remus holds his hands over the cucumber and concentrates. " _Unguentum_ ," he murmurs. It's a good enough word for what this is. The slices slither together like a second skin and sink in deeper.

"All the gods," says Sirius, blissfully. "That's- that's lovely." He sighs and settles into the rug a little further.

Remus sits beside him, in the quiet, with his back against the wooden bedframe and cucumber juice drying between his fingers. The upstairs windows are all open and he can hear James and Peter arguing over the quaffle half-heartedly. It's too hot for quidditch, except the flying parts. Remus shuts his eyes and thinks about the wind. "Remus ?" says Sirius, after a while.

"Hmm ?"

"Do you think- not right away, but in August- if your mum's alright with it, if she wouldn't mind," he rambles, partly muffled by the rag rug and his own arm, "I could come and visit for a week or so ? I'll have been here for a month then, and the Potters will be tired of me, and I'm just asking, and you can say no." He doesn't even look up. "You don't have to answer right now."

"Yes."

"You can answer whenever you like, when you've asked her, and if she says-" Sirius trails off. "Yes."

"I said yes," says Remus, and flicks him in the back of the head.

"Not sporting," Sirius scowls. "I'm the walking wounded. Practically helpless. I can't so much as lift an arm." He demonstrates this by trying to kick Remus in the ear without moving the top half of his body. Remus pushes his face into the floor for a minute and he relaxes. "Moony," he says, chewing lint, "thanks." Remus ruffles his hair and pretends not to notice how much Sirius leans into that brief touch.

"No problem," he says.


End file.
